Re: Whaddaya think?

DFS <nospam@dfs.com> writes:

On 6/16/2024 10:41 PM, James Kuyper wrote:

On 6/16/24 12:20, DFS wrote:

On 6/15/2024 6:22 PM, Keith Thompson wrote:

DFS <nospam@dfs.com> writes:

...

return(0);

>
A minor style point: a return statement doesn't require parentheses.
IMHO using parentheses make it look too much like a function call.  I'd
write `return 0;`, or more likely I'd just omit it, since falling off
the end of main does an implicit `return 0;` (starting in C99).

>
Can't omit it.  It's required by my brain.

The parentheses you're putting in are completely unrelated to the use of
parentheses in _Generic(), function calls, compound literals,
sizeof(type name), alignof(), _BitInt(), _Atomic(), typeof(),
typeof_unqual(), alignas(), function declarators, static_assert(), if(),
switch(for(), while(), do ... while(), function-like macro definitions
and invocations or cast expressions. In all of those cases, the
parentheses are part of the grammar.
The parentheses that you put in return(0) serve only for grouping
purpose. They are semantically equivalent to the parentheses in "i =
(0);"; they are just as legal, and just as pointless.
If your brain doesn't immediately understand why what I said above is
true, I recommend retraining it.

>
I meant omit a return altogether.
>
But looking around, I rarely see return(0).  Don't know why it became a
thing for me.
>
Moving forward, return 0 it is.

By the way, you might have retained return (exp); from old C.  C
originally required the parentheses, but they got dropped quite early
on.  The syntax in K&R (1st edition) does not require them, but almost
all the code example in the book still have them!

I took a while to drop them as I came to C from B where they were always
required so I'd got the habit.

--
Ben.